Tackling the culinary and grammatical arts in simultaneous mouthfuls.

Tabouleh – kinda.

Monday, April 6th, 2009

Oh haiii parsley, mint and bulgar wheat!!

That’s it. The good times are over. Well, temporarily anyway. We’ve decided to go on a bit of a loose detox for the next two weeks. I noticed that the last few posts on the blog have been thoroughly unhealthy and indulgent. I’m planning on having a Guilty Pleasures Party in two weeks, an idea I got from this blog over here. Expect more details of that to come!

I thought it would be a good idea to get a bit of a health fix for a couple of weeks leading up to the Guilty Pleasures. My own mini Lent, if you will. So we’re going to stay off the booze and do our best to get six, if not five a day, and be generally zen-like and healthy and clear-headed. Hopefully we’ll be able to keep it up beyond three days.

I decided to make a kind of tabouleh. Tabouleh is a delicious salad which is believed to have originated in Lebanon. My parents are both teachers and I spent most of my childhood in Jeddah, Saudia Arabia, where we enjoyed a lot of Lebanese-influenced types of food. My love of hummus started at a very early age, indeed.

The following recipe is finally one that I don’t have to link to BBC Good Food for! This isn’t exactly tabouleh but is based loosely on a recipe my Mum uses. Feel free to tweak this as you see fit.

Aoife Mc’s Tabouleh…Kinda for around four people

150g bulgar wheat

300ml vegetable stock

a handful of mint, finely chopped

an even bigger handful of parsely, finely chopped

2 large delicious tomatoes, finely chopped (I used cherry tomatoes quartered this time but regular ones are probably better)

1/2 a cucumber, quartered

juice of 1/2 a lemon

splash of olive oil

salt and pepper

Traditional Tabouleh recipes would have a lot of the fresh herbs and no cucumber and perhaps some scallions thrown in as well. Obviously it’s open to interpretation and I felt like having more bulgar wheat in my salad.

Put the bulgar wheat in a bowl and pour over the boiling hot stock. You may not need all of the stock. What I did was put in about 200ml to start and let it sit for a good fifteen minutes. Then, after a bit of a stir and fluffing with the fork, I poured in the other 100ml and let it sit for another 15 minutes. In truth, that extra 15 minutes was accidental – I got distracted! But it worked anyway, the bulgar wheat was lovely and softened. You can decide yourself what kind of texture you want for your bulgar wheat – I was quite happy with the results of the long soaking, I have to say. On packets it usually only advises you to soak it for five or ten minutes, but I would suggest longer. But do experiment for yourselves and find out what you like best.

While the bulgar wheat is soaking up the stock, chop up all your herbs and your tomatoes and cucumber. When the bulgar wheat is ready, throw everything into the bowl along with the lemon juice and a splash of olive oil, if you like. Season and stir.

You can serve this as a side salad – especially if you’re having falafels, yum! – or you can have it as a salad on its own. We had some Ryvitta and Hummus on the side. It was a good start to our health kick. A very refreshing and bright salad which manages to avoid making the prospect of being healthy /shedding a few pounds feel as miserable as waiting for the 75 bus in the pissing rain on your way to the local Dole office. Huzzah!

MP3

While preparing the salad, I was listening to Beck’s 2008 album Modern Guilt, which kind of passed me by last year but is proving to be a late bloomer. It’s quite good. Nowhere near the magic of Sea Change, but that is one of my top three favourite albums of all time so… This is a fairly funky track called Youthless. I still can’t believe Beck’s a Scientologist! Sort it out, Hansen!

Hey Diva! Tabouleh is the business all right. It’s so lovely and light as well, and tastes great for lunch the next day!

My mini detox is going pretty well so far. It’s Good Friday tomorrow so that means that ALL THE PUBS IN IRELAND ARE CLOSED. You can’t buy booze in the shops tomorrow either. You can imagine the panic that this instills in the hearts and minds of our little nation. It’s like there’s a war on or something. People buy loads of booze today to stock up for tomorrow just in case they run out!

Hi Aine,
Yes, I too cannot believe that Beck is a scientologist! I have loved him since I was 14 and I think Modern Guilt is amazing, but how can someone so great be soooo SILLY!!!
On the Tabouleh, I am also on a health kick at the mo- which explains the lack of baked goods appearing on Lucy and mine’s blog, but I have been planning to make a tabouleh with quinoa instead of bulghar wheat, like the one they have in blazing salads, so look out for that soon.
Also, Lucy bought me some amazing baking paraphenalia for my birthday so I will have to do a bit o baking soon. Think shes trying to tell me something…
Im just getting into your blog, its great!!
(lucy’s housemate) Lola Rayne